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That row of numbers on a book’s copyright page is
called the
printer’s key
and tells you whether you’re holding a first edition or fourth or what.
First editions look like this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

… and each time the publisher goes back to the presses for
a reprinting, they delete a number. So this:

5 6 7 8 9 10

… is a fifth printing of that edition.

This isn’t really a secret. I just thought that was a funny blog title. But reprintings are great, because they mean the book sold more than
the publisher’s worst fears. It’s a constant source of joy
to me that while the Syrup hardcover was
such a commercial disaster that you can more easily find
remaindered
copies than real ones, the paperback keeps getting
reprinted, fourteen years on. Last month, I flipped to a Syrup
copyright page and saw this:

I don’t care if they are running off eight books at a time; that’s
awesome. It’s so sad when a book goes out of print. It’s like a little
death. I hope e-books will save authors from those.

Also, Syrup just got itself a movie tie-in edition!
As a reader, I’ve always disdained movie tie-in editions. I’m all,
“If I wanted to see the movie, I would, like, see it.”
But as an
author, it makes me stupidly happy. I mean, movie tie-in edition.
Who wouldn’t want one of those. And I’ve never really loved the existing
Syrup covers. I don’t hate them. But I don’t love them.
The US paperback
in particular looks to me like an ironic comment on
marketing, only without the ironic part.

Plus, these will make excellent gifts for people who have no intention of
reading the book but will be impressed by the fact that it’s a movie.

My
fifth novel, Lexicon, is out today in the US & Canada,
so I’m going
to spend some of today visiting New York bookstores, looking at it,
and feeling weird. The
early press
on this book has been kind of shockingly good, like what you
dream about as an author but never actually happens, so I’m daring
to think that THIS COULD BE IT, the book that allows me to
use the word “bestselling” without abusing its definition. Poor
word. It has been so stretched.

But a few days ago I finally watched Syrup and I need to tell you
what that was like! I’ve been building this up for about
five years and then I did one tweet, so people have been
asking HEY WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE FILM. But I was traveling
and not sleeping and didn’t get the opportunity. Now I’m writing
this from a New York hotel room at 3:30am, so I’m making
my own opportunity, like Tony Robbins.

I
had been holding out to see Syrup in a theater, since that was
what I’d always dreamed about. But then I realized I had a problem,
because I could only see it in a theater in the US, and my wife, Jen,
wouldn’t be there. Jen was a huge part of writing Syrup; she read the first
draft one chapter at a time and got all excited about it in a highly
motivating and sexy way that made me keep writing. Plus she’s an
awesome person to see a movie with. But we
could only get a DVD in Australia, not see a theater showing.

So I made an executive decision: The night before I hopped a plane
(Melbourne to Sydney to Los Angeles to Houston to Columbus all in one
32-hour Friday),
Jen and I dragged the sofa up to the TV and closed the curtains,
so it would be like a real theater.
We were both nervous and held hands and said things like,
“Whatever it’s like, it doesn’t change the book.”

And! Then! We! Played! It!

I have trouble summarizing my reaction because I reacted
in pieces. I would see a scene and think, “Oh! I wrote this one!”
or “Wait that is different!” and I didn’t process it at all like
a normal person watching a movie. It was all about individual
scenes. But my first thoughts were:

“Oh no this is too confusing.” The first time I watched it,
I was a little shocked at how little setup there was, especially at the start,
and thought no-one would understand what was going on. Everything moved
so fast. But I’ve since seen it
again (in a theater in Columbus with an actual live audience, and ohhh,
how amazing to watch it like a proper movie), and I felt
this far less. I think my initial reaction was a novelist kind of thing;
films can move faster and the audience still picks up the gist
of what’s happening.

“This looks really good.” The visuals of the movie are really strong. I knew
the filmmakers were very big on this, and had an experienced and highly skilled cinematographer in
Julio Macat, but boy does that show. Every shot is beautiful and interesting.

“This scene I wrote is awesome!” My favorite parts, for completely selfish
reasons, were scenes that played out just like I’d written them in some
screenplay draft or other. And then they were on the screen! Some I loved
because they were just like I’d imagined (6 making Scat breakfast,
Scat shaking a dummy), and seeing them come to life was thrilling; some were
awesome because they took my material in unexpected directions,
elevating the scene beyond what I’d expected (the monologues,
ZephCo’s corporate goons—which Josh Pais and Christopher Evan
Welch play hilariously well).

I thought this must mean that I am an amazing screenwriter, but
later the director showed me some deleted scenes, which included lots
of stuff that played out just like I’d written and was really horrible,
so I realized the truth was they just kept my good parts. The rest,
which turned out to suck when filmed, were quietly executed. So
that’s lucky for me.

“Amber Heard is amazing.” Holy crap. Amber Heard is amazing. I was always
worried about how 6 would turn out, but Amber annihilated that character. In a good way. My
favorite part of the whole movie is her monologue about marketing love;
I think that’s perfect. I love Shiloh, too, and many many others, but Amber is
amazing. You should make a note so that when everyone else catches on
you can be all like, “I actually preferred her earlier work in Syrup.”

“How did they do all this?” I’ve thought this before, when I was on set, but I
keep re-thinking it. Novels are easy compared to films. Novels, I just sit
there and type and things happen. Films require people to painstakingly create every
detail that winds up on screen. It’s so practical. They have to wrestle
the real world into submission. They have to make decisions based on trade-offs and
logistics. And it’s so easy to forget because the end result looks effortless.

“OMG ending.” I’d heard they changed the ending. I’m not going to
say how, because, you know, spoilers. But I had written a particular
kind of ending in pretty much every screenplay draft, and then the film
went and did something completely different. And it’s better!
I saw my original ending as a deleted scene and boy did it suck. It sucked a lot.
The new one is actually thought-provoking and makes you want
to go back and rewrite some screenplays. That may just be me. But I love
the ending.

Overall, I think the film is very true to the book, not just in its
tone and characters but in how they are both kind of raw and and messy but
steam ahead powered by earnest, youthful enthusiasm, never worrying about
whether they’re being too ridiculous. The film is an indie and if that was
a thing for books, the book would be, too. They are a good match. As
an author, that’s what you want your film adaptation to be.
Well, also super successful. But most of all, you want it to be true.
This film is true.

How To Watch Syrup: So it turns out the movie is only playing in a super-limited
number of theaters and will mostly be an
iTunes/On
Demand/DVD kind of
thing. At which it’s doing well; it’s been sitting in the Top 100 Movie Rentals charts
for a month (currently #52), and wrestling with three or four others for the #1
Indie spot.
Thank you so much if you had something to do with making that happen.
It makes a massive difference to the people who sweated and toiled for
months or years on this, doing unspeakable things in the name of
making a good film.
Outside the US, I still don’t know; I keep hearing there will be some
kind of release in most major international markets, but all I know for sure
is Australia gets it in November.

People are about to watch my movie. Seriously. This is happening.
Until now, I’ve been able to say, “Oh yes, I have a movie,”
and no-one could say, “Yeah, I thought that SUCKED.” Because no-one had seen
it. That time is over.

Today, May 2, 2013, Syrup launches as a “sneak” on Video on Demand,
which is something I had no idea about until very recently, but I have since learned is
how you release an indie movie to generate buzz ahead of its theatrical
release. If you live in the US, you can
rent it right now from iTunes.
Also, if you have some kind of premium digital cable thing, you can
use that.
I’m not sure of the details there. I don’t live in the US. But it’s something like that.

The dream here is that Syrup breaks into the Top 10 Movie Rentals on iTunes.
That would be huge. So if you are in the US and want to help push it up the list, today is the day.

But back to me.
Over the last few years I’ve thought a lot about what happens if, like,
the movie turns out to be so bad that they write newspaper articles about it
and people come to my house asking why I would visit such an abomination
upon the earth. Also, what if it becomes the breakout hit of the year and
they write newspaper articles about it and people come to my house
asking can I help them sleep with Kellan Lutz.

Because movies get seen by a lot of people. And those people have strong opinions.
That’s a little daunting. Also, some people who read the novel have been
amazingly supportive of my career over 10 or 15 years, and I don’t want
them to be disappointed. Yet that’s kind of unavoidable, when adapting a book,
since a film can never match what’s in your head.

On
top of this, I still haven’t seen the movie. A while back, I decided to wait until I could
see it in a theater, since it’s kind of a big moment for me. But I didn’t anticipate
this on-demand sneak thing. I’m in Australia, where the film isn’t released until
November, and now I have this slightly awkward scenario where a lot of people will see it
before me.

So the movie is suddenly here and I don’t know what people will think.
Before I have a book published, I’ve at least
seen some early reviews, and the publisher has completed a print run (thrillingly
high or alarmingly small), which gives me a general idea of what to expect.
But today: nope. Which is kind of scary.

But I am going to try not to become lost in that, and remember to enjoy
how awesome it is to, you know, have a freaking movie. I’ve seen authors
do this: they dream of being published, but when it
finally happens, they’re so preoccupied with whether it will be
a hit that they don’t seem to actually enjoy the moment.

The reality is most books and movies aren’t breakout hits: they are read or seen
by some people, and some of those people love it and some don’t. And that’s it.
This isn’t very romantic, not the kind of thing you imagine about when you
dream of being an author or actor or filmmaker. But it’s still pretty great.

One of my favorite moments as an author is an email I received from a 14-year-old
who said Jennifer Government was the best book he’d read in his life.
It was so cute. I mean, obviously he hadn’t read that many books. But no-one
could be more gushingly, genuinely enthusiastic than this kid. I will never get a
more delighted email, no matter how many books I write, or how many people read them.
As far as creating something that connects with people, that’s as good as it gets.

This movie process has been awesome
all the way through. I got to write scripts, swap ideas with the director,
hang out on set, and try not to strangle Amber Heard with a necklace.
These are all amazing moments that I would have killed for as a 23-year-old,
writing the novel in my car during lunch breaks from my sales job. And
today is another one.

ONE MORE THING: How similar is the movie to the book?

Although I haven’t seen it, and don’t know how much of various scripts I wrote
are in the final movie, I do know I wrote a lot of stuff that departed heavily from the
book’s plot. I didn’t change the characters or the world much, but I changed what
they did. I mention this because I don’t think you should
go into the film expecting it to be exactly the same. I never wanted the film
to be like the book only with all the parts you imagined now filled in.
I wanted it to be something new.

I’m seriously losing the battle to Facebook and Twitter. It’s just
so easy to post stuff there. I hardly even need to think about it.
For a blog I actually have to spend time composing
my thoughts. I know that’s not really evident, but I do.

As a result, I have accumulated a COMPENDIUM OF NEWS, each item of
which failed to inspire a blog all by itself, but which nevertheless
requires mention. So buckle in, sparky.

Syrup Movie: Trailer & US Release Date

There was a
teaser, now there’s a trailer!
Those are different, trust me.

The film is out June 6, 2013 in the US. But there’s something called a “sneak
on demand” on May 2nd, which I think is some kind of Internet thing?
I don’t know. Will it be viable outside the US? I don’t know! But I’m excited!

I think that’s my shoulder at
1:10.
I’m not sure. I didn’t think I was wearing
a jacket. But I was
definitely
standing behind Amber Heard while she made
sexy at the camera and no-one else was around. Don’t tell me I imagined that.
It happened.

Lexicon: Early Reviews

My fifth novel,
Lexicon, comes out June 18 in the US & Canada and a few days later
in the UK, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. I’m not promising
this is the novel that will finally allow you to talk about me without
the other person saying, “Who?”, but the early signs are good.
There’s a big print run lined up, early reviews are very positive,
and awesome people are saying awesome things:

“About as close you can get to the perfect cerebral thriller: searingly smart,
ridiculously funny, and fast as hell.” —Lev Grossman, New York Times
bestselling author of ‘The Magicians’

“Lexicon grabbed me with the opening lines, and never let go. An absolutely
thrilling story, featuring an array of compelling characters in an eerily
credible parallel society, punctuated by bouts of laugh-out-loud humor.”
—Chris Pavone, New York Times Bestselling author of ‘The Expats’

“I don’t know how you could craft a better weekend read than this novel
of international intrigue and weaponized Chomskian linguistics.
It’s the perfect mix of philosophical play and shotgun-inflected chase
scenes. Like someone let Grant Morrison loose on the Bourne identity
franchise.”
—Austin Grossman, author of ‘Soon I Will be Invincible’ and ‘You’

“Dazzling and spectacularly inventive. A novel that jams itself sideways
into your brain and stays there.”
—Mike Carey, author of ‘Hellblazer’ and ‘Lucifer’

Also film rights to Lexicon have been optioned by
Matthew Vaughn, director of
a slew of incredible movies including Kick-Ass 1 & 2,
X-Men: First Class,
Startdust, and Layer Cake. Did I mention this already?
I don’t think I did. Anyway,
I think we’ve been down this road often enough
to realize that “optioned” doesn’t mean “there will definitely
be a film.” But it does mean there might be.
And I think Matthew’s record of turning optioned properties into films is
running at around 90%. That’s what he told me, anyway. So that could happen.

Book Tours & Events & Things

Melbourne, Australia: I’ll be launching Lexicon at an
Embiggen Books event on the day of Aussie publication (Tuesday 25th June).
They have a
Countdown Timer
running so you can always know exactly how many seconds you have to wait.

USA: So this is kind of awkward, because I have a film and a book coming out
a few weeks apart and I live a really long way away. I mean, it’s the good
kind of awkward. It’s the kind of problem you like to have. But at this stage it’s looking
like I’ll be in the US for early June, either in LA or New York, but won’t
come back for a whole tour. I’m thinking I might do some kind of pre-release thing
in whichever city I visit, where I read from the new book and then leave
you all frustrated and unable to purchase a copy.

UK & elsewhere: Sorry, you need to make me a lot more famous, to justify those air fares.

Jennifer Government

Do you want a Jennifer Government wallpaper? Of course you do! You’re not
crazy!

Also these days Jennifer Government is looking less like a film
and more like a TV series. Just FYI.

Machine Man

Look at this Korean Machine Man cover. There’s a flamingo on it. Are
there flamingos in the novel? No! Not that I recall. But there it is. The back
of the cover has a whale and a stag as well.

Japan

Korea

On the right is the Japanese cover, which I think is super cool. That comes out
on May 10. I say this knowing full well that not a single person will
think, “Oh, that’s good to know. I’m an English-speaking Max Barry fan living in Japan
right now.” But still.

Also
that Machine Man film
is still ticking along. You might have thought that since there has
been nothing announced for a year or two, that dream was gone. But no! FYI.

(Unless you want to completely avoid spoilers. As in, you
haven’t read the book. And you don’t intend to. But you really want to see
the movie. And you’re browsing my site. You’re a strange person.)

Amber Heard as 6, Shiloh Fernandez as Scat:

Scat gazes skyward while a machine lurks ominously in the background:

Kellan Lutz as Sneaky Pete:

Now for some ANSWERS to COMMON QUESTIONS.
I don’t believe there’s an official release date yet, but it can’t
be too far away now, can it? Not with these STILLS. So I’m guessing
within the next six months.

I haven’t
seen the film; I am waiting until I can see it in a cinema.
Because having a novel turned into a feature film, that’s
kind of a big deal. I don’t want to watch the end result of that on a DVD.
I want to sit in a theater and crane my neck and eat popcorn. Right?

The movie doesn’t strictly follow the plot of the book. I can say that
without seeing it because I wrote many screenplay drafts,
and they didn’t strictly follow the plot of the book. I don’t think movies
should be like books only with all the parts you’d normally imagine filled in.
I think they should do their own thing. They should be true to the core
of the book but express that in whichever ways work best.
Also, you know how I rewrite my novels to death? Oh. Well, I do. I change
a lot in each new draft. So imagine me adapting my own novel. It’s a miracle
anything survived.

If you missed it before, here is
a teaser.
I think it’s awesome. I was so happy when I saw this. I watched it
about thirty times in a row.